BOOK REVIEW: This well-researched book teases out the fundamental social impact of new web-based technologies such as blogs and social networking websites.

Here Comes Everybody

by Clay Shirky; Penguin; €25

THE POWER that the web gives to individuals has been well documented. The rise of so-called "social" tools which put capabilities such as film-making and news publishing into the hands of Everyman prompted Time magazine to name "You", the individual, as its person of the year in 2006.

In some quarters, particularly among the professionals whose privileged status is threatened by this shift, the increase in web-based tools such as user-generated content has been dismissed as trivial. Blogs are dismissed as the trite waffling of nerds, Facebook is simply a way to waste time at work, and text messaging is just a cheap way for teenagers to keep in touch.

In Here Comes Everybody, Clay Shirky sets out to show how new, predominantly web-based tools are enabling communities and special interest groups to form in a way that was just not possible in the past. To back up his argument he draws from sociology and economics, while also giving solid real-world examples which demonstrate the fundamental changes that are taking place thanks to seemingly trivial communication tools.

Extremely well-researched, the book draws on a wealth of academic sociological work to explain why these tools are having such an impact.

The subtitle of the book is "The Power of Organising Without Organisations". Shirky's basic thesis is that people can now come together in groups that were not possible before because the cost of doing so has fallen to almost zero.

E-mail, social networking websites, search engines and blogs allow these groups to discover each other, collaborate and communicate with minimal barriers. In the past, the formation of such groups would have involved significant overheads, including advertising, posting printed newsletters and possibly incorporating a company or charity. These new capabilities are being embraced by groups as diverse as open-source software developers and mothers working in the home. Not all such efforts at group action are successful, but Shirky points out that it is now cheaper to try an idea that may fail than to draw up a shortlist of potential projects.

If a criticism is to be levelled at the book, it is that Shirky could break up his long theoretical tracts with real-world examples, as it is with these that Shirky comes into his own.

He explains in detail why the collaborative encyclopedia Wikipedia has been a success while an LA Times initiative to allow readers to edit opinion pieces bombed after just a few days. He shows why a clerical child abuse scandal in 2002 led to a grassroots movement of the faithful looking for the church to change, when a similar case in 1992 had far less impact.

Shirky illustrates how the web can bring together large groups with a common interest, whether that's getting airlines to treat customers better or the desire for political change in Ukraine.

This can happen before outsiders are even aware that the groups are forming. And the pace with which they can organise is increasing.

People picking up this book in a shop for a casual browse may not engage with it. One of the weakest examples that Shirky uses is found in his introductory chapter.

It concerns the loss of a smartphone in New York by a woman called Ivanna, who recruited a computer programmer friend to help her recover it. The hunt attracted worldwide attention for a short period, thanks to the collaborative power of the web. The programmer, Evan Guttman, got help from people it would not have been practical to connect with in the pre-internet age.

However, this example is trivial and frankly none of the characters in the story are appealing.

Despite being a self-admitted lover of the internet, Shirky is not dewy-eyed about the potential of social software for its own sake.

The technologies are not of interest in and of themselves, and Shirky devotes relatively little time to describing them, but rather they are manifestations of a fundamental shift that is affecting society and business.

Those who question the value of Facebook, Flickr, Twitter or other social tools, typically dismissing them as timewasting for geeks, are missing Shirky's fundamental point. The new tools are simply a way for people to channel their existing motivations, no matter how trivial or serious those motivations might be. "Bees make hives, we make mobile phones," as he puts it pithily.

Shirky is not naive enough to suggest the end of companies, universities or other institutions, but points out that the advantages they had over self-organising groups have all but disappeared, and that this changes society.

Here Comes Everybodyteases out the fundamental social impact of these new technologies without the fluffy thinking about community that a lot of internet commentators fall back on. For that alone it is worth attention.